Looks like there is some funky internet routing going on. I found another post on an ubuntu board that indicated that some ISPs aren't able to connect to linuxtracker.org, so I proxied through another site and was able to start the .torrent. I've since disconnected the proxy, but peer exchange is keeping it going, so I'll have it down shortly.

In the future, could whoever is putting up a linuxMCE torrent please add multiple trackers (openbittorrent, tpb) so this issue can be avoided by others (hopefully)?

I used a VPN (I have a few VPN accounts around the world to avoid country-specific internet localization issues). Grab a VPN account from any of the free or non-free providers. Start VPN, attempt to connect to torrent. If it times out, try a different VPN.